Thursday, September 23, 2010

Yesterday GW's What's New Today Blog, home of a daily dose of pretty pictures and no useful hobby information, acknowledged and possibly defined what a WAAC gamer is. If you read far enough into the 9/22/10 Throne of Skulls Survival Guide, you would have run into the following after being bored to tears by the most obnoxious survival guide ever:

the temptation to play to win at all cost can overtake the best of us. However, any unscrupulous play will not earn you many friends and may eventually lead to retribution. If you can't swim I'd be extra friendly just to be on the safe side

There you have it, a WAAC player, according to a published GW contributor, is unscrupulous (a cheater) and acts like a dick. There is no mention whatsoever of bringing a good list, playing by the rules as written, or playing a tight, hard game (no homo, not that there's anything wrong with that). So everyone that I've argued with in comments threads, forums, FNIF's, my mind, in person, or whatever can officially fuck off. Invoking the first rule (have fun, or some bullshit) is likely to earn you a swift kick (or maybe a kwik kick) to your shriveled little testicles. Playing a good game with a good list does not make you a WAAC gamer; being a jerkoff and ruining somebody's "fun" does.

16 comments:

is it just me or did they kind of let all the lil pussies feel free to call anyone and anything 'WAAC' because 'you spoiled my fun' by bringing a balanced all-comers list to a game?

it's kinda like being told you're going to have a rumble, and to pick a weapon... so you choose the Swiss army Carbine, then are promptly mocked because you can handle EVERYONE at the rumble.

why don't people just use Swiss army carbines? They handle all situations, and aren't subject to "ah I see you brought a knife to this gunfight" bullshit, or aren't subject to "ahh I see you brought a sniper rifle to this knife fight"

Under the "Exalted of the Blood God" he states that his Daemon Prince gets 4+ cover saves because he's standing behind some Khorne Berzerkers.

Really? On GW's own website? They didn't catch such an obvious rules blunder marketed as tactical acumen?

Of course, they didn't catch Phil Kelly's blunder with Minotaurs either when the "What's New" article focused on PK's own Minotaur models. And PK wrote the damn army book! It took a bunch of emails to force a next-day retraction of something so blatantly wrong ... and even stupid tactically, even if it *would* be legal to build the unit as PK said he did.

If you ever had any faith in GW playtesting or how well they understand the rules to their own games, "What's New" will consistently disabuse you of that notion.

Knowing that, they have no right to accuse people of being WAAC gamers. They don't even play the game by the rules as it is! They must think everybody cheats because they know how to read!

The thing about the British scene is that very few people over here look at the hobby in an analytical light - dare I say few British Warhammer players are analytically minded at all - and the concept of tactics really doesn't do anything for them. They like to *pretend* they understand something about it, hence tat articles like that one, but in truth they aren't fussed - the real joy of Warhammer is imagining a fight between their well-crafted toys, not actually thinking about winning.

Now I'm British, and I cannot stand the sort of tripe passed off as tactics by GW - it's ludicrous ego-strokery without any substance. But I'm rare really, most of the people you find at a GW in England will be there for painting, modelling and nerdy conversations about the fluff, and the odd game between mismatched, poorly (sometimes illegally) built armies with limited rule-maintaining and only the most basic of tactics. People are more likely to make a move based on how cool it sounds in their heads than what it will do.

@Zorgatron - your comment really illustrates the disconnect between GW and the American market, which seems, to me at least, to be more interested in competitive gaming. I don't get why they shun the idea so damn much, competitive gamers are buying products.

Mmmm, I'd say GW is slowly waking up to the truth of competitive gaming, hence the more competitive and interesting release lately. They just don't want to admit it, on the flimsy grounds of not offending the fluff bunnies (as if that term means anything - who doesn't love the fluff?)

That's great Sorrowshard, but you missed the point. I said MOST of British Warhammer players, I entirely expect there are sects of tactical players like yours throughout our merry land (even if they are only 2-3 heads strong like mine). Conversely, with the exception of deranged old-guard types like JJ I would refrain from calling GW designers retarded - duplicitous maybe, and naive in places, but judging by the last 5 codexes and 8th ed Fantasy it's safe to say at least the designers understand competitive gaming to a greater degree than not.

Kick ass blog network

Want to contact Dethtron- who wouldn't?

Feel free to send me your hate mail, links to other people's bullshit, inernet fights, naked pictures of Bea Arthur, or anything else you feel like passing along, but for the love of god please add "permision to publish" or "please don't publish" somewhere in the e-mail to save us all time.